Terry Marotta: Advice to remember

We grownups love to give our young people advice. Who knows if they remember any of it?

I was recently in the presence of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick when he gave some advice to eight young men that I'm pretty sure they' remember forever.

These eight are students in my town's chapter of A Better Chance, a non-profit organization devoted to developing national leaders by recruiting and referring gifted student of color to attend more than 300 of the nation's most challenging secondary schools.

The Governor himself is a person of color so there was that.

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But long before he was a student at Harvard, or Harvard Law School, before he was an attorney or this state's Chief Executive, he too was an ABC scholar. In 1970, at age 14, he left the projects on the South Side of Chicago to attend prestigious Milton Academy.

Maybe having the ABC experience in common with these eight is why he said yes to the request for a visit made by Mario Paredes, our program's Resident Academic Coordinator.

I say "our." As the Chair of the Student Life Committee for my own town's ABC chapter, I'm with these boys a lot; and I can tell you I jumped at the chance to help transport them to the Governors' Office and witness this meeting.

We filed in, rendered nearly mute at finding ourselves in the presence of this remarkable man in this jewel-box of a room designed by the great Charles Bulfinch in the 1790s.

"Why don't I tell you a little about where we're sitting?" he kindly said, and did that as we gradually regained our composure

Then, he went around the table asking the boys where they hailed from.

Brooklyn and Queens, they said.

Harlem and Philly.

Bridgeport and Meriden, Connecticut.

Sophomore Tobi Omola had some questions ready but in the end he set them aside. Naming aloud their home communities seemed to put things on a more personal footing somehow.

"I know it must vary, but what is your schedule like from day to day?" asked Senior Ray Millings.

That day, the Governor said, he woke at 5, walked the dog, worked out a bit and rode in to the office. He presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a zero carbon emissions facility and met with the Governor's Council. He talked by phone with now-Secretary of State John Kerry whose replacement in the U.S. Senate he would soon be naming. There would be several more meetings after ours and then the ballet at night.

"When do you REST?" someone asked.

He only smiled at that, and began speaking instead about what it had been like for him to leave his home community at the end of the 8th grade, just as these young men have done, knowing that really, he could never go back.

"My friends at prep school weren't that interested in hearing about my life back home, and my friends at home weren't interested in hearing about Milton. It was as if the requirement for admission to each of those worlds was rejection of the other."

He was always trying to adapt in one world or the other, he said - until it came to him at some point that if he were true always to his own voice, his own values, his own feelings, he couldn't go wrong.

The boys nodded. They knew what he was saying exactly.

Then he invited them to pose for an official picture, each one sitting in his chair while he stood behind it.

I believe they will forever cherish both those photos and the wisdom imparted to them by one who has walked in their shoes.